Heart of Darkness: Waiting for You
by ZepysGirl
Summary: For the novel Heart of Darkness. A re-writing of the last scene in the novel from The Intended's Point of View.


_Heart of Darkness_: Waiting for You  
_The Heart of Darkness_ was written by Joseph Conrad

**Author's Note:** This consists mostly of the last scene of the book, rewritten from the Intended's _Point of View_. I included a few bits before that, so that you can get a grasp of her personality. This has been grammar and spell checked by my friends and Word, but please excuse any other mistakes that might have survived the editing.  
I did this mainly because I didn't like the way Marlow always referred to the women as"out of" the problem. Like we're idiotic bimbos who could never understand the truth, so why try explaining it? XP I felt that there was a possibility of emotional depth in the Intended, one that Conrad never showed us. I needed to give them first names for this story, so here's the skinny:  
**The Intended** - Cathrine  
** Kurtz** - George

* * *

It had been exactly fifteen months, two weeks, and four days since Catherine's life had ended. Of course, she hadn't learned the news until a few months later, but that mattered little to the situation. On the day she had been notified that her life was over, Catherine had been sitting in the parlor enjoying the evening with a few fellow Company wives and wives-to-be. The news had come to her during desert in the form of a small man with a funny mustache. He had quickly and quietly informed her that her Intended was dead, and left the room for what he undoubtedly considered a more important errand. 

The next morning when she awoke, Nettie informed her that she had fainted from the shock. Catherine had asked "What shock?" and Nettie had said those words that had ended her life the first time, "George Kurtz, Catherine. He's dead."

That time Catherine only wished for unconsciousness.

* * *

It had been exactly fifteen months, two weeks, and five days since Catherine's future had disappeared. She was still learning to live with it gone. 

It wasn't the everyday things that were different. She had lived without her betrothed for years. She had been hardly of age when he'd proposed to her, hardly ready three months later when he had left to pursue his fortune in the Dark Continent. His ailing mother had needed a caretaker, and so Catherine had moved in with the woman. The old Mrs. Kurtz had stubbornly refused to be moved somewhere more suitable than the old gothic house, but Catherine hadn't bothered her about it. The old crone hadn't survived her son's departure very long anyways; a scant half a year was all that passed before the house and everything in it belonged to Catherine alone. Well, to George Kurtz, really. Everything she had belonged to George. _Had_ belonged to George.

At night she had used to dream of the day he'd come back. He'd walk up the front stairs, pass by the marble banister, and sweep Catherine into his arms. He would promise never to leave her again and they would be married. Finally, married. Catherine had been engaged to George Kurtz for three years. Three _very_ long years. Three years of not being "Mrs. Kurtz", but "Mr. Kurtz's Intended". The waiting would have all finally been worth it, and with the money George was sure to make she would reclaim her place in high society once again. That's what she'd used to dream.

* * *

It had been exactly fifteen months, two weeks, and six days since Catherine had learned to hate Kurtz. He had taken her whole life, her future, and he hadn't even had the decency to be an unlikable man. She loved him, this was true. She had no choice but to love him. It was his gift, a special way with people that made him their God. And so she hated him, because she couldn't stop loving him, even after the doubt crept in. 

Because, as much as she'd tried, she couldn't stop the whispers. How very_convenient_ that Kurtz had only left for the Congo after he had secured a "caretaker" for his mother. Other women began to notice, as the years had worn on, that Catherine had received fewer and fewer letters from her fiancé. There had even been a rumor that he had planed to annul their engagement the moment he returned._Because—he couldn't have really loved Catherine, now could he?_ they murmured, _Not when he'd spent a few scant months courting before cavorting off to the jungle. And he hadn't even married the poor girl first, what a shame…_

It had been exactly fifteen months and three weeks since Catherine had gained a new identity. It was a metamorphosis from shy, timid bride-to-be to wonderfully tragic widow. And she played the part amazingly well. No one would doubt her sincerity, her tears over his death. Even if more and more those tears were shed for her lost life, a life waiting for a man who hadn't come, who would never come. One of a thousand others who had lost their men to Africa. But Catherine took her new persona and played it well. She was the most devout widow in England, without a doubt. George would have been proud.

* * *

It had been exactly fifteen months, three weeks, and one day since her beloved had been ripped away from her. Nothing left to hold onto but the house and her new role as _mourner extraordinaire_. Except for a message received earlier that week. It had been posted by a one Charlie Marlow writing that he had something to show her, and would be in the city today. He had promised, in his letter, that he would stop by to hand off this thing of Kurtz's which he claimed she should have. 

Catherine was ecstatic, to say the least. This man had apparently been with George in the Congo, had shared his last minutes. How she longed to speak with him! To know—to know something other than just that he was dead— perhaps to how he died, or why. Something more concrete that could help dispel his specter from her mind.

Catherine had on her best black dress and was waiting in the drawing room for her guest. The mirror reflected a picturesque mask of sorrow. Good, good. All the players were set for the play. Catherine would enter from stage left, shed some tears on Kurtz's behalf, and Mr. Marlow would walk away thinking "Never has a woman so loved her husband." Close Curtain. There was a knock at the door.

Ever so gently Catherine floated across the marble floor and took both of the stranger's hands in her own. She whispered "I had heard you were coming." But he just stared blankly at her. For a moment, Catherine fantasized that she had mistakenly chosen the wrong man for her charade, but no, it must be Marlow. He avoided her eyes, though. This wasn't right. Catherine's act made others feel sorry for her, or seemingly share her sorrow. Never anxious or nervous. Dropping his hands, Catherine gestured to the chairs, and they both sat down. He placed a packet of something on the table between them but continued to fidget. She tried to salvage their conversation. Common ground. Hesitantly, she said, "You knew him well…?"

"Intimacy grows quickly out there," he answered gruffly. "I knew him as well as it is possible for one man to know another."

"And you admired him!" Well of course, that mush was obvious. Marlow wouldn't have come all the way from Africa to her home in England if he hadn't had some respect for the man in question. She laughed, but it too, like his earlier speech, was a nervous and an unsteady thing, "It was impossible to know him and not admire him. Was it?"

"He was a remarkable man," he said unsteadily. "It was impossible not to—"

"—love him," Catherine answered before she thought. By Marlow's appalled gaze, she had made a horrible misstep in communication. She rushed on to distract him, "How true! how true! But when you think that no one knew him so well as I! I had all his noble confidence. I knew him best."

"You knew him best," he repeated dumbly. This discussion was failing miserably. Catherine wanted so desperately to talk with this man about Kurtz, what he had _really_ been to the both of them; for she could see a glimmer in his eye hinting that the seaman had known the real Kurtz as well. But she was stuck playing her part of tragic widow, and couldn't throw off the façade now. Not when she'd worked so hard to build it up in his honor.

'You were his friend,' Catherine said softly. Marlow didn't react at all, it was as if she hadn't said anything, 'His friend,' she repeated, a little louder this time. His eyes tore themselves away from her forehead. What, was there something there? She had checked herself not five minutes ago. More than just odd, Catherine was beginning to suspect this man was a little touched in the head.

She pointed down to the packet he had brought to distract his attention, "You must have been his friend if he had given you this and sent you to me!" She let herself slip into the easy persona of Kurtz's widow, hardly listening to what she was saying. "I have been worthy of him…. I am proud to know I understood him better than any one on earth—he told me so himself. And since his mother died I have had no one—no one—to—to…" at this point in one of Catherine's monologues, most men would have already broken down and offered her their sympathies. Not so with this one. Marlow sat there; face as expressionistic as a stone wall.

Catherine was running out of material, "Who was not his friend who had heard him speak once? He drew men towards him by what was best in them." Now that hadn't even made any sense. Catherine glared at Marlow. Why wasn't he speaking? Why was it her job to keep this conversation limping along? Didn't he know she was a poor, tragic widow!? "It is the gift of the great," she said fervently. At these words Marlow looked even more distant that before. "But you have heard him. You know!"

"Yes, I know," At last, he speaks! Marlow bent his head and stared at the carpet. It was as if, having finally let slip a word, he was hanging his head in defeat.

"What a loss to me—to us," she corrected quickly. Compassionate widow, Catherine reminded herself. George's dearth was not just her's alone, but the world's. And she hadn't cried once yet this time, an oversight. Not that she suspected her tears to have much of an effect on Marlow. It was time to wrap up this charade anyways. He was not a very responsive audience. "I have been very happy—very fortunate—very proud. Perhaps too fortunate. Too happy for a little while. And now I am unhappy for—for life.'

This was the crescendo, the finale of her little play. Catherine stood up and walked a ways from Marlow. She heard him rise as well. "And all of this," she paused for emphasis, "of all his promise and all his greatness, of his generous mind, of his noble heart nothing remains—nothing but a memory. You and I…'

'We shall always remember him,' he jumped in, but his words chilled Catherine to the bone. To always remember Kurtz, to never move on? For the rest of her life, to wear this mask of perfect mourning while her feelings died? Because she could not destroy this image Kurtz had left her while she still remembered his touch on her face, his gentle words…

'No!' she cried. Catherine had no want to be that man's shadow forever. There would come a day when her penance was up and she was allowed to walk freely again, no longer haunted by the ghost of her former lover. But that day was not today and her outburst did not fit well with her role. 'I meant—it is impossible that all this should be lost—that such a life should be sacrificed to leave nothing—but sorrow!" There, that fit well enough. Marlow didn't seem like he wanted to push the matter further, at least. Catherine looked to distract him, "You know the last plans he had. I knew of them too—I could not perhaps understand—but others knew of them. Something must remain. His words at least have not died."

"His words will remain," repeated Marlow. Really, this man was like a parrot.

"And his example," she whispered, prodding. 'Men looked up to him—his goodness shone in every act. His example…'

'True, his example too." he answered back, expectedly. "Yes, his example. I forgot that."

"But I do not. I cannot—I cannot believe—not yet. I cannot believe that I shall never see him again, that nobody will see him again, never, never, never!" And that was true. It had become such a part of her daily life for those years while he was gone, thinking "Well, maybe tomorrow he'll be home," that Catherine hadn't been able to shake herself from the habit. And still sometimes at night she caught herself dreaming of when he would return to her. And now she found herself looking out the window pane into the fading light, still expecting him down the road any minute. "He died as he lived, I'm sure," she whispered quietly.

"His end," said Marlow behind her, his voice suddenly more alive than it had been his entire visit, "was in every way worthy of his life."

"And I was not with him." Catherine murmured, stating a simple fact. She hadn't been with him for years, but the distance had never seemed as large as it did then. They hadn't even brought his body back to England.

"Everything that could be done…" the seaman said, for once trying to act comforting. Here was ground Catherine knew well. She could work with sympathy—it was better than facing her own emotions.

"Ah, but I believed in him more than any one on earth—more than his own mother, more than—himself. He needed me. Me!" But even as she said this, she knew it was a lie. It was Catherine who had needed George, who had needed him so badly she had waited years in his absence. "I would have treasured every sigh, every word, every sign, every glance."

"Don't," Marlow said. With his odd tone, Catherine didn't know whether it was a command or a plea. "Don't" what, she wondered? But it was of no importance.

"Forgive me. I—I—have mourned so long in silence—in silence….You were with him to the last? I think of his loneliness. Nobody near to understand him as I would have understood. Perhaps no one to hear…" Someone other than you, Catherine hoped silently. This man had spent half of their conversation acting like a dumb parrot; what a poor companion for her fiancé's final moments.

'To the very end,' he whispered hoarsely, his voice shaken from emotion. What emotion, she could not imagine. 'I heard his very last words….'

'Repeat them,' Catherine begged him, the packet Marlow had come to deliver forgotten on the table. 'I want—I want—something—something—to—to live with.' She let her voice tremble with emotion to match his. He seemed to be on the brink of telling her or withholding the vital last words. At that moment, nothing else mattered to Catherine but hearing those last words. Surely some clue in them would allow her to rest this mantle of grief. 'His last word—to live with. Don't you understand I loved him—I loved him—I loved him!' and nothing was more true than that. Though the words were jumbled, Marlow seemed to grasp their meaning. Slowly, as if worried Catherine might faint, he said,

'The last word he pronounced was your name.'

A great rush of air fled from her lungs; she had unknowingly been holding her breath. It was hard to understand exactly. He hadn't seen her for years, had been hardly writing at all near the end, couldn't have cared at all for her and yet—

'I knew it—I was sure!' she cried, and then the tears wouldn't stop. Sobs racked her body and only one thought was in her mind, repeated over and over again incessantly was _"He loved me, he loved me."_

* * *

**Author's Note:** So that's it, hope you liked it. Oh yes: THIS IS A ONE-SHOT! It's done! Finito! And if you recognized the dialog, congratulations. It is, almost verbatim, the dialog from the last scene in the book. No, it's not just that I have an... "interesting" way with words. Since I was rewriting the scene, I found it prudent to reuse the dialog. Most of their motions are the same as well. I encourage you to go and read this last scene in the book again! 

(And I totally hold to the theory that Marlow is a parrot. Srsly, _so canon_.)


End file.
